Assessing the Role of Motivation on Employees

thr ole CHAPTER 1- EXECUTIVE SUMMARY The main purpose of this study was to” assess the role of work motivation on employee performance”. This study in an assessment of this purpose used deductive approach in which a qualitative survey was carried out among employees of different companies. The survey was intended to get their responses on what they feel is (are) the best factors that could motivate them as employees among a list of ten motivational factors.
In this light the study sets to identify the most ranked factors among the ten motivational factors. The analysis from the empirical findings showed that Job satisfaction” was the most ranked factor for both sub groups that made up the sample survey. However a study from previous researches used in this study showed that different results could be obtained from different groups of already working employees.
This study therefore can be seen as an introduction to a more detailed study to be carried by future researchers on the field of employee’s motivation. CHAPTER 2- INTRODUCTION * Background When looking at factors that affect job satisfaction, I find that Agency theory might be helpful as it explains the extent to which organizations need to think of their human resource responsible in producing the output needed by organizations to meet shareholders value.

Agency theory is concerned with issues related to the ownership of the firm when that ownership is separated from the day-to-day running of the organization. It assumes that in all but owner- managed organizations the owner or owners (known in agency theory as the “principal”) of an organization must vest authority to an “agent”-corporate management- to act on their behalf. The principal recognizes the risk, here and act on the assumption that any agent will look to serve its own as well as the principal interests as it ulfils it contract with that principal. However, this is not the situation in real life situation. As all agents are perceived to be Opportunistic. These approaches are to examine the problems of human exchange derived from the field of finance and economics but they are often applied to the study of shareholders Risk Management (SHRM). Agency theory is therefore used to analyze this conflict in interest between the principal (shareholders of organizations) and their agents (leaders of these organizations).
Whereby the “Agents” in keeping with the interest of the shareholders and organizational goals turn to use financial motivational aspects like bonuses, higher payrolls, pensions, sick allowances, risk payments, perks to reward and retained their employees and enhance their performance. There is a strong lobby propounding the view that human resources and their management are the source of competitive advantage for the business, rather than, say, access to capital or use of technology.
It is therefore logical to suggest that, attention needs to be paid to the nature of this resource and its management as this will impact on human resource behavior and performance and consequently the performance of the organization. Indeed Boxall and Steeneveld (1999) argue that there is no need to prove the relationship between firm critical influence on performance and labour management as it is self evident that the quality of human resource management is a critical influence on the performance of the firm.
Concern for strategic integration, commitment flexibility and quality, has called for attention for employees motivation and retention. Given this perception, the principal in an organization feels unable to predict an agent’s behavior in any given situation and so brings into play various measures to do with incentives in other to tie employee’s needs to those of their organization. Thus getting employee’s identification with respect to the organization, and thus increasing their commitment level.
As an approach to mediate the employment contract, elements of human resource strategy (especially those to do with rewards and retention) can offer a way of ensuring an efficient transaction process that enables both parties to get committed towards the fulfillment of each other needs. The fundamental problem, dealt with is what drives or induces people to exploit their potential resources in the way they do in organizations? The issue of motivation and performance are they positively related?
By focusing on the financial aspect of motivation problem like bonus system, allowances perks, salaries, etc. By paying attention to the financial aspect of motivation, I intend to probe in to the role this aspect has on enhancing employee’s performance. I believe, financial motivation has become the most concern in today’s organization, and tying to Mallow’s basic needs, non-financial aspect only comes in when financial motivation has failed. Though in some situation, it is being operated side by side.
But as a research topic for my thesis I will employ the financial aspects of motivation used by the agents of organization in enhancing their employee’s performance and the extent to which non-financial aspects of motivation turn to enhance employee’s performance. To evaluate the methods of performance motivation in organization in organizing some motivational factors like satisfies and dissatisfies will be used to evaluate how employees motivation is enhanced other than financial aspects of motivation. Problem Statements As a research question, the research seeks to answer what role motivation plays in enhancing performance in organization. This will be possible through analysis of information gathered from students. Hence this thesis is mainly quantitative. * Objectives In trying to find an answer(s) to the research question and on the basis of the above background discussion and research question, the main purposes developed for this thesis is to assess the factors that motivate employees to perform best at work.
This is done by carrying out a survey in which respondents responding to a survey, ranked the least two most important factor on a list of ten factors, and how these factors influence them. * Limitations and Demarcations The limitation is being considered in relation to the natural explanation to which the researcher has limited the study and the active choices to limit the study area that is financial motivation as a determinant of performance. The study is limited to existing theories and models, and their influence and limitation on performance enhancement.
By considering the financial and non-financial aspect of motivation on employees’ performance relating to existing theories and models, I intend to mark a demarcation for the study. Here I have considered limitation in line with the research objective that is the study is limited. I believe that with the changing nature of the work force, recent trends in development, information and technology, the issue of financial motivation becomes consent on one of the most important assets in an organization.
A lot has been said on the outside forces of an organization. This research considers the inside forces as a starting point. Ideally, a study of all the explanatory variables will be considered appropriate in order to capture the interactive influences of other variables and thus be able to come up with holistic and generally more acceptable results, of financial motivation and performance. * Definitions Motivation: Motivation by definition refers to what activates, directs human behavior and how this behavior is sustained to achieve a particular goal.
Also it can be defined as the set of processes that arouse, direct and maintain human behavior towards attaining some goals. Jones (1955) argues that” Motivation is concerned with how behavior gets started, is energized, is sustained, is directed, and is stopped and what kind of subjective reaction is present in the organization while all this is going on. ” Role of financial motivation: The potential role of money is – (1) Conditioned reinforce (2) An incentive which is capable of satisfying needs (3) An anxiety reducer (4) Serves to erase feelings of dissatisfaction
Employee satisfaction: This refers to the positive or negative aspects of employee’s altitude towards their jobs or some features of the job. Organizational Goals: A concept, which refers to the focus of attention and decision-making among employees of a sub-unit. Organizing: This involves the complete understanding of the goals of organization, the necessity of proper co-ordination, and the environmental factors that influence the goals and employees within the organization. Employee attitudes: Mental state of readiness for motive arousal.
Performance: the act of performing; of doing something successfully; using knowledge as distinguished from merely possessing it; A performance comprises an event in which generally one group of people (the performer or performers) behave in a particular way for another group of people. Efficiency: The ratio of the output to the input of any system. Economic efficiency is a general term for the value assigned to a situation by some measure designed to capture the amount of waste or “friction” or other undesirable and undesirable economic features present.
It can also be looked as a short run criterion of effectiveness that refers to the ability of the organization to produce outputs with minimum use of inputs. CHAPTER 3- Literature review * What is motivation? According to Greenberg and Baron (2000) this definition could be divided into three main parts. The first part looks at arousal that deals with the drive, or energy behind individual (s) action. People turn to be guided by their interest in making a good impression on others, doing interesting work and being successful in what they do. The second part referring to the choice people make and the direction their behavior takes.
The last part deals with maintaining behavior clearly defining how long people have to persist at attempting to meet their goals. Reinter (1995), Buford, Bedeian &Linder (1995), Higgins (1994) all cited in Linder (1998,) defined motivation as “the psychological process that gives behavior purpose and direction, a predisposition to behave in a purposive manner to achieve specific unmet needs, an unsatisfied need, and the will to achieve, respectively. Young (2000) suggest that motivation can be defined in a variety of ways, depending on who you ask .
Ask someone on the street; you may get a response like “it’s what drives us” or “it’s what makes us do the things we do. ” Therefore motivation is the force within an individual that account for the level, direction, and persistence of effort expended at work. ” Halepota (2005) defines motivation as “a person’s active participation and commitment to achieve the prescribed results. ”Halepota further presents that the concept of motivation is abstract because different strategies produce different results at different times and there is no single strategy that can produce guaranteed favorable results all the times. Antomioni (1999), “the amount of effort people are willing to put in their work depends on the degree to which they feel their motivational needs will be satisfied. On the other hand, individuals become de-motivated if they feel something in the organization prevents them from attaining good outcomes. It can be observed from the above definitions that, motivation in general, is more or less basically concern with factors or events that moves, leads, and drives certain human action or inaction over a given period of time given the prevailing conditions.
Furthermore the definitions suggest that there need to be an” invisible force” to push people to do something in return. It could also be deduced from the definition that having a motivated work force or creating an environment in which high levels of motivation are maintained remains a challenge for today’s management. . This challenge may emanate from the simple fact that motivation is not a fixed trait –as it could change with changes in personal, psychological, financial or social factors.
For this thesis, the definition of motivation by Greenberg & Baron (2003) is adopted, as it is more realistic and simple as it considers the individual and his performance. Greenberg &Baron defines motivation as:“The set of processes that arouse, direct, and maintain human behavior towards attaining some goal”. (Greenberg &Baron, 2003) Bassett-Jones &Lloyd (2005,) presents that two views of human nature underlay early research into employee motivation. The first view focuses on Taylors, which viewed people as basically lazy and work –shy”, and thus held that these set of employees can only be motivated by external stimulation.
The second view was based on Hawthorn findings, which held the view that employees are motivated to work well for “its own sake” as well as for the social and monetary benefits this type of motivation according to this school was internally motivated. * Motivational theories Even though much research been conducted on the field of financial motivation and many researchers and writers have proposed theories on the concept of financial motivation, and its role in enhancing employee’s performance in every organization some of these models have been widely used and accepted by today’s organizations leaders.
In this thesis discussion on some of the motivational theories will include Alders (ERG theory), Maslow (Need theory), Vrooms (Expectancy theory), Adams (Social equity theory), Taylor (productivity theory), Herzberg (Two factor theory), Mac Gregory (theory X and Y), Geogopalaus (path goal theory) and skinner (Reward theory). To better understand this discussion a summary of the theories is presented and an indebt discussion on Maslow and ERG theories on which I base my thesis overlooked.
Alder asserts in his Existence relatedness and growth theory commonly known as the ERG theory that there are three basic human needs: Existence, relatedness and growth, which must be meet by an employee to enable him, increase performance. Maslow (1943) suggests that human needs can be classified into five categories and that these categories can be arranged in a hierarchy of importance. These include physiological, security, belongings, esteem and self-actualization needs. According to him a person is motivated first and foremost to satisfy physiological needs.
As long as the employees remain unsatisfied, they turn to be motivated only to fulfill them. When physiological needs are satisfied they cease to act as primary motivational factors and the individual moves “up” the hierarchy and seek to satisfy security needs. This process continues until finally selfactualisation needs are satisfied. According to Maslow the rationale is quite simple because employees who are too hungry or too ill to work will hardly be able to make much a contribution to productivity hence difficulties in meeting organizational goals.
Vroom (1964) proposes that people are motivated by how much they want something and how likely they think they are to get it he suggest that motivation leads to efforts and the efforts combined with employees ability together with environment factors which interplay’s resulting to performance. This performance interns lead to various outcomes, each of which has an associated value called Valence. Adams (1965) on his part suggests that people are motivated to seek social equity in the Rewards they receive for high performance.
According to him the outcome from job includes; Pay, recognition, promotion, social relationship and intrinsic reward . to get these rewards various inputs needs to be employed by the employees to the job as time, experience, efforts, Education and loyalty. He suggests that, people tend to view their outcomes and inputs as a Ratio and then compare these ratios with others and turn to become motivated if this ratio is high. Taylor (1911) observed the soldering by employees, which is a situation whereby workers work less than full capacity.
He argued that soldering occurs due to the fact employee’s fear that performing high will lead to increasing productivity, which might cause them to lose their jobs. This slow paces of work where promoted by faulty systems however this situation is not what prevails with contemporary employees who organizations evaluate them through their performance. Herzberg suggested that there are factors in a job, which causes satisfaction. These he called intrinsic factors (motivators) and other factor he refers to as dissatisfies (hygiene factors).
According to him if the motivational factors are met, the employee becomes motivated and hence performs higher. Mac Gregory suggested that there exist two sets of employees (lazy and ambitious employees) with lazy employees representing theory X, hard and ambitious workers representing Y. According to him the lazy employee should be motivated to increase performance in an organization. Geogopalaus path Goal theory of motivation states that, if a worker sees high productivity as a path leading to the attainment of one or more of his personal goals, he will turn to be a high producer.
But if he sees low productivity as the path leading to the attainment of his goal he will turn to be a low producer and hence needs to be motivated. This discussion on the above motivational theories explains the fact that the concept of employee’s motivation has been a critical factor addressed by previous authors as what determines the core competence of every organization in achieving a competitive position. Skinner who propounded that any behavior that is rewarded tends to be repeated supported this view. The term motivation has been used in numerous and often contradictory ways.
Presently there appears to be some agreements that the crucial thread that distinguishes employee’s motivated behaviors from other behavior is that it is goal directed behavior, Bandar (2000P223) argues that the core of motivating individuals lies in the goal-directed aspect of behavior. Jones suggested “motivation is concern with how behavior gets started, is energized, is sustained, is directed, is stopped and what kind of subjective re-action is present in the organization while this is going on. The process egins because of tension within drives or needs of an employee. Next there is a search within the company or groups or within employee to fulfill his desires. When the employee is satisfied with his financial motivation he redefines his desires and needs and the process is initiated again. These groups of researchers were over the years divided into what was later labeled the content and process theories of motivation. Steers, mow day& Shapiro (2004) the process generated during this period, makes this period referred to as “the golden age of work motivation theories”. Never before and, some would argue, never since has so much progress been made in explicating the etiology of work motivation” (steers et al. ) Bassett-Jones & Lloyd (2005) suggests that the “content theorists led by Herzberg, assumed a more complex interaction between both internal and external factors, and explored the circumstances in which individuals respond to different internal and external stimuli. On the other hand, process theory, where victor Vroom was the first exponent considers how factors internal to the person result in different behaviors.
From the focus point of these two groups, one could observe that the process theories attempt or try to understand the thinking processes an individual might go through in determining how to behave in a workplace. The primary focus was on how and why questions of motivation, how certain behavior starts, developed and sustained over time it is true that human behavior in general is dynamic and could affect the individual’s personal altitude as well as factors surrounding that individual.
These exogenous factors eminent from the environment in which the individual operates generate stimuli to employees. It is my belief that employees in general are goal seeking and look for challenges and expect positive re-enforcement at all times. Hence it could only be of benefit if organizations could provide these rewards and factors. Though I have discussed earlier in this thesis that employees are financially motivated, motivation could be seen as a moving target, as what motivates differs among different people.
And may even change for the same person over a given period of time, developments within the modern organization has probably made motivating employees ever more difficult due to the nature of every individual, behavior increasing the complexity of what can really motivate employees. Bassette-jones & Lloyd (2005) “expectancy, equity, goal setting and reinforcement theory have resulted in the development of a simple model of motivational alignment. The model suggests that once needs of employees are identified and organizational objectives and also satisfy employee needs .
If poorly aligned, and then low motivation will be the outcome”. According to (Wiley, 1997) “modern approaches to motivation may be organized into three related clusters: (1) personality-based views (2) cognitive choice or decision approaches and (3) goal or self-regulation perspective; where personality-based views emphasize the influence of enduring personal characteristics as they affect goal choice and striving. Workplace behavior is posited to be determined by persons current need state in certain universal need category.
Cognitive choice approaches to work motivation emphasize two determinant of choice and action; expectations, and subjective valuation of the consequences associated with each alternative. These expectancy value theories are intended to predict an individual choice or decision. Goal framework to work motivation emphasize the factors that influence goal striving which focuses on the relationship between goals and work behavior. The assumption is that an employee’s conscious intentions (goals) are primary determines of task-related motivation since goals direct their thoughts and action”.
It is worth noting that an in-depth review of all the different theories mentioned above, is beyond the scope of this thesis. However, the personality-based perspective of work motivation within which Maslow need theory of motivation and Alders ERG theory falls will provide the main support and serve as a foundation for the research reported in this thesis. Specifically, as organizational scholars have paid a great deal of attention to the idea that people are motivated to use their jobs as mechanisms for satisfying their needs.
This project intend to use Maslow’s hierarchy of need theory of motivation as a foundation to identify the factors that motivate today’s employees, and in the process determine a ranking order off actors that motivates these employees, the original Maslow theory will be looked at more detail hereof. * History and Explanation of Maslow’s Hierarchy of Need Theory The “motivation to work” published by Maslow probably provided the field of organizational behavior and management with a new way of looking at employees job altitudes or behaviors in understanding how humans are motivated.
Probably the best-known conceptualization of human needs in organizations has been proposed by this theory. Abraham Maslow was a clinical psychologist who introduced his theory based on personal judgment, which was generally known as the need hierarchy theory. According to him if people grew in an environment in which their needs are not met, they will be unlikely to function as healthy individuals or well adjusted individuals. This idea was later applied to organizations to emphasize the idea that unless employees get their needs met on the job, they will not function as effectively as possible.
Specifically Maslow theorized that people have five types of needs and that these are activated in a hierarchical manner. This means that these needs are aroused in a specific order from lowest to highest, such that the lowest-order need must be fulfilled before the next order need is triggered and the process continues. If you look at this in a motivational point of view Maslow’s theory says that a need can never be fully met, but a need that is almost fulfilled does not longer motivate.
According to Maslow you need to know where a person is on the hierarchical pyramid in order to motivate him/her. Then you need to focus on meeting that person’s needs at that level (Robbins) According to Greenberg and Baron (2003,) the five needs identified by Maslow correspond with the three needs of Alderperson ERG theory. Whereas Maslow theory specifies that the needs be activated in order from lowest to highest Alder’s theory specifies that the needs can be activated in any order. His approach is much simpler than Maslow’s.
Alder specifies that there exist three main needs as opposed to five postulated by Maslow. This human basic needs include existence, relatedness and growth. These needs according to Alder need not necessarily activated in any specific order and may be activated at any time. According to him Existence needs corresponds to Maslow’s physiological needs and safety needs. Relatedness needs corresponds to Maslow’s social needs and growth needs corresponds to esteem and self-actualization needs by Maslow.
Below is a summary of these needs that in this thesis are divided into Deficiency needs(psychological, safety, social needs) and Growth needs (esteem, self-actualization needs). Factors Explanation 1. Physiological needs are the need at the bottom of the triangle and include the lowest order need and most basic. This includes the need to satisfy the fundamental biological drives such as food, air, water and shelter. According to Maslow organizations must provide employees with a salary that enable them to afford adequate living conditions.
The rationale here is that any hungry employee will hardly be able to make much of any contribution to his organization. 2. Safety needs this occupies the second level of needs. Safety needs are activated after physiological needs are met. They refer to the need for a secure working environment free from any threats or harms. Organizations can provide these need by providing employees with safety working equipment e. g. hardhats, health insurance plans, fire protection etc. The rationale is that employees working in an environment free of harm do their jobs without fear of harm. . Social needs: This represents the third level of needs. They are activated after safety needs are met. Social needs refer to the need to be affiliated that is (the needed to be loved and accepted by other people). To meet these needs organizations encourage employees participation in social events such as picnics, organizations bowling etc 4. Esteem needs this represents the fourth level of needs. It includes the need for self-respect and approval of others. Organizations introduce awards banquets to recognize distinguished achievements. . Self-actualization: This occupies the last level at the top of the triangle. This refers to the need to become all that one is capable of being to develop ones fullest potential. Most research on the application of need theory found that although lower-level managers are able to satisfy only their deficiency needs on the jobs, managers at the top level of organizations are able to satisfy both their deficiency and growth needs (Greenberg &Baron2003) this view was supported by Shipley &Kiel (1988)
Shiply &Kiel (1988) argue that as “need satisfaction is an attitude, and that it is perfectly possible for a worker to be satisfied with his/her need, but not be motivated the reverse of which holds equally true. Hence, need satisfaction and motivation are not synonymous and both need fulfillment and un- fulfillment can have negative as well as positive influence on motivation. * Organizational /managerial Applications of Maslow’s Need theory The greatest value of Maslow’s need theory lies in the practical implications it has for every management of organizations (Greenberg & Baron 2003).
The rationale behind the theory lies on the fact that it’s able to suggest to managers how they can make their employees or subordinates become self-actualized. This is because self-actualized employees are likely to work at their maximum creative potentials. Therefore it is important to make employees meet this stage by helping meet their need organizations can take the following strategies to attain this stage 1. Recognize employee’s accomplishments: Recognizing employee’s accomplishments is an important way to make them satisfy their esteem needs.
This could take the form of awards, plagues etc… According to (Greenberg & Baron 2003, p197) research carried out in GTE Data services in Temple Terrace, Florida shows that awards are given to employees who develop ways of improving customer’s satisfaction or business performance. But it should be noted that according to Greenberg &Baron awards are effective at enhancing esteem only when they are clearly linked to desired behaviors. Awards that are too general fail to meet this specification. 2. Provide financial security: Financial security is an important type of safety need.
So organizations to motivate their employees need to make them financially secured by involving them in profit sharing of the organization. In a research carried out with AT&T and Wang showed that 50% of their employees received financial outplacement services to assist laid-off employees in securing new jobs. 3. Provide opportunities to socialize: Socialization is one of the factors that keep employees feel the spirit of working as a team. When employees work as a team they tend to increase their performance.
Research conducted on IBM shows that it holds a “family day” picnic each spring near its Armonk, New York headquarters. 4. Promote a healthy work force: Companies can help in keeping their Employees physiological needs by providing incentives to keep them healthy both in health and mentally. In a research carried out at the Hershey Foods Corporation and Southern California Edison Company showed that Employees are provided with insurance rebates with health lifestyles while extra premiums were given to those with risk habits like smoking. * Criticisms of Maslow’s Need theory of motivation
Maslow proposed that if people grew up in an environment in which their needs are not meet, they would be unlikely to function healthy, well-adjusted individuals. Research testing Maslow’s theory has supported the distinction between the deficiencies and growth needs but showed that not all people are able to satisfy their higher-order needs on the job. According the results of the research managers from higher echelons of organizations are able to satisfy both their growth and deficiency needs lower level managers are able to satisfy only their deficiency needs on the job.
Maslow’s theory has not received a great deal of support with respect to specific notion it proposes (Greenberg &Baron 2003, p195). To them this model is theorized to be especially effective in describing the behavior of individuals who are high in growth need strength because employees who are different to the idea of increasing their growth will not realize any physiological reaction to their jobs. Centers &Bengal (1966) in their survey carried out among a cross-section of the Working population in Los Angeles, posited “background factors, altitudes and aspirations Affects workers needs, expectations and situation assessment”.
According to Graham & Messner (1998) there are generally three major criticisms directed to the need theory and other content theories of motivation. (A) There is scant empirical data to support their Conclusions, (b) they assume employees are basically alike and (c) they are not theories of Motivation at all, but rather theories of job satisfaction. This was supported by the views ofNadler & Lawler (1979) in Graham &Messner (2000). Nadler & Lawler (1979) cited in Graham & Messner (2000) were also critical of the need theory of motivation.
They argue that the theory makes the following unrealistic assumptions about employees in general that: (a) all employees are alike (b) all situations are alike and that (c) there is only one best way to meet needs. Another critic to this view was Basset-Jones & Lloyd (2004). Basset-Jones & Lloyd (2004, p 961) presents that in general, critics of the need theory argue that it is as a result of the natural feeling of employees to take credit for needs met and dissatisfaction on needs not met.
Nonetheless and regardless of the heavy criticism levied at the hierarchy of need theory, I believe that this theory has a made a significant contribution in the field of organizational behavior and management especially in the area of employee motivation and remains attractive to both researchers and managers alike. The incorporation of the need theory into the work environment today could be as a result of the contributions made so far by Maslow’s Hierarchy of need theory. Empirical studies on employee motivation using the original and Adapted Maslow’s model If any person has to come up with the question that is there any need for employees motivation? The answer to this type of question of-course should be simple-the basic survival of every organization is it public or private limited before, today and in the foreseeable future lies in how well its work force is motivated to meet the objectives of the organization. This explains why the human resource department in today’s organization is became a focus of its core functions.
I think that motivated employees are needed in this rapidly Business world where the principal-agent conflict is the issue confronting most managers. Most organizations now consider their human resources as their most valuable assets (a strategic or competitive advantage). Therefore, in order to effectively and efficiently utilize this strategic asset, I believe managers and the organization as a whole must be able and willing to understand and hopefully provide the factors that motivate its employees within the context of the roles and duties they perform.
This is because highly motivated employees are the cause of high productivity levels and hence higher profits for the organization. Having noted this rationale the next question one may ask are what factors motivated today’s employees”? According to Wiley (1997, p265) at some point during our lives, virtually every person may have to work. He claims that working is such a common phenomenon that the question “what motivates people to work is seldom asked.
Wiley went on to say that “we are much more likely to wonder why people climb mountains or commit suicide than to question the motivational basis of their work”, therefore, exploring the altitudes that employees hold concerning factors that motivate them to work is important to creating an environment that encourages employee motivation. From the much amount of literature available on employee motivation, it is clearly evident that a lot of surveys regarding employees and what motivates them have been undertaking.
These employee motivation surveys have been conducted in many different job situations, among different categories of employees using different research methods and applications. One of the very first survey to be conducted was on industrial workers by (Hershey & Blanchard, 1969) over the years, similar or different survey employees have been carried out see (Kovach, 1987, 1993) (Wiley, 1995), (Lindner, 1998, 1999) According to a research carried out by Kovach on industrial employees who were asked to rank ten “job rewards” factors based on personal preferences where the value 1 represented most preferred and 10 being the least preferred.
The results were as follows (1) full appreciation of work done (2) feeling of being (3) sympathetic help with personal problems 4) job security (5) Good wages and salaries (6) interesting work (7) promotion & Growth (8) employees loyalty (9) Good working conditions (10) tactful discipline. During the periods of (1946, 1981 & 1986) when employee surveys were carried out, supervisors were at the time asked to rank job rewards, as they taught employees would rank them.
The rankings by the supervisors were relatively consistent for each of the years. These rankings were as follows: (1) Good wages (2) Job security (3) promotion and Growth (4) working conditions (5) interesting work (6) personal loyalty to employees (7) tactful discipline (8) full appreciation (9) sympathetic help with personal problems (10) recognition (Kovach 1987) The results from the supervisor survey indicated that their ranking had not changed over the study period with regards their collective perception of factors that motivate employees.
This shows that they had a very inaccurate perception of what motivates employees but also that they did not realize the importance of the need theory. In a survey by Wiley (1997, p. 278) in which approximately 550 questionnaires were administered to person employed at different industries and divided into 5 subgroups, or categories namely: (occupation, gender, income levels, employment status and age) they were asked to rank 10 factors according to the level of importance each is in motivating them to perform best with the most important factor ranked 1 and the least important ranked 10th.
The survey concluded with the following collective rank order by respondents: (1) Good wages (2) full appreciation of work done (3) job security (4) promotion (5) interesting work (6) company loyalty to employees (7) Good working conditions (8) tactful discipline (9) recognition (10) sympathetic help with personal problems.
The results from a representative sample of the labour force in seven different countries by Harpaz (1991) showed that the two most dominant work goals were “interesting work” and Good wages”; He further concluded that these two factors were consistent across different organizational levels, between genders and age groups. Quinn (1997) also cited in Harpaz (1991 p. 311) concluded, “When the ratings of twenty three job related factors (including the need factors) were carried out, the conclusion reached was that no single factor was pre-eminently important”.
He further pointed out that, “The most aspect of the worker job was that of sufficient resources to perform a task. From the above studies presented so far, the rankings by different subgroups have shown semantic differences in the importance placed on different motivational factors. For example (Kovach, 1987, Wiley, 1997 and Harpaz, 1990) . The discrepancies in these research findings supports Nelsons (2001) positional view that “what motivates employees differs and may change for the same employee over time”.
It is appropriate at this level to give a brief summary of the previous researches in this thesis. Even though the original need hierarchy theory was presented some 50 years ago, some of its if not all factors remain of significant importance to employees today. The large number of earlier and recent studies investigating employee motivation using sometimes the original or modified version of Maslow’s theory, may continue the appreciation of this theory and the issue of employee motivation.
The literature also shows that where the original theory was lacking (short comings or criticized for), has been greatly taken into consideration. Researchers have taken issues such as differences in gender, age, income, culture & countries etc and how these may affect or influence employee work motivation extensively. The commonality between these previous researches is the agreement that certain factors are more important as motivational factors than others and that these factors may change from one employee to another.
These previous studies have also been taken using different methods, from surveys, questionnaires, face-face interviews, but their outcomes have not differed significantly. A possible explanation could be due to the fact that even though these studies were carried out using different methods and target population, the motivator’s factors remain same. The literature used in this thesis covers a wide range of time period, highly relevant and useful for addressing the purpose of this thesis. CHAPTER 4- RESEARCH METHODOLOGY * Method
In order to form a background and to give the reader an appropriate direction of focus of my work, I have put forward and motivate the choices I have made when working on this research. Thus all the issues raised in this chapter should form the basis for evaluation of the result in the light of how I have planned and carried out the work. * Choice of Subject In a rapidly evolving environment, where skills and capabilities continuously play a vital role in the creation of shareholders wealth and values, firms must be able to learn fast and adapt regularly.
So as to attract, retain and integrate their workers with respect to new challenges of globalization and technological advancement. Ensuring that their workers can construct and share strategically valuable knowledge. Organizations must be able to arouse, directs and sustained human behavior to achieve organizational goals and meet shareholders value many organizations have failed to link employee’s interest to those of the organizations and as such, employees and employers job contract has become unstable, with higher labour turn over.
Thus I have chosen to write on this topic because traditional tangible assets (employees) have become less important than intangible knowledge -based assets (technology). I believe, a study like this one could form the bases for the evaluation of company motivational strategies, and thus a quorum for future research and organizational adjustments.
The emergence of the knowledge economy is one of the most dramatic shifts to have taken place in society since the industrial revolution, with the impact of the World Wide Web I address the belief that, with the current trend of globalization, labour turnover demands more part times to full time jobs, companies need to continuously measure and evaluate their motivational strategies with respect to labour turnover and the number of new applicant and hence think on how to enhance performance.
Having worked back home, with some organizations where I served as an intern, I realized that some employers were misunderstanding the concept of motivation. The work environment was not conducive and in most situations, the environment was tense with little or no job satisfaction employer’s turn to look upon financial motivation as the only aspect of motivation, which can be used to enhance every employee’s performance. Thus, I thought of the issue of employee’s motivation of a research interest.
Thus when the issue of a C-level thesis came to my mind I reflected on my past experience with my former employers with motivation being a point of focus. I believe the result and recommendation could serve some other organizations and open up opportunities for further research. We may agree that in reality most if not all organizations consider their employees to be the most valuable resources since the other factors of production can easily be obtained due to globalization.
Researchers for example Pfeiffer (1998), cited in (Whittington and Evans, 2005) suggested “perhaps the only remaining source of sustainable competitive advantage is through people”. This in other words suggests that the effective and efficient management of this human resource has and will continue to be of increasing importance possibly for all organizations. Thus, the subject of this thesis was based on the increase importance of people within all kinds of organizations.
That is to identify if financial motivation is the sole factor pushing today’s employees to go the extra mile and give their best at work, and in so doing provide a rank of all other factors that can push employees to best performance. Aspiring as a future manager, the findings of this thesis will not only help me understand what motivates employees in different works of life, but also an advantage for my future managerial abilities and capabilities. * Perspective
Perspective in terms of a research study can be considered as the starting point of the research study . it more or less clarifies from which direction the researcher(s) studies the problem at hand and how he or she plans to interpret the research findings in reality. The choice of perspective usually has a strong connection with the purpose of the research and most often than not influences the choices of methods and theories needed to carry out the research (Reed, 2006).
The general perspective in this thesis is broadly from USBE student’s point of view as employees and future employees. That is to identify what motivates employees to do best at work. This perspective is taken with the hope that results of this thesis could act as guide that would help organizations retain their most valuable resource and hopefully reap the rewards of a motivated work force. This thesis will provide a collective rank order of motivational factors among employees, taking the perspective of the employees is considered to be appropriate for this thesis.
Writing a research like this one requires every researcher to take a stand and have a view of knowledge. Here, I have taken my stand or perspective for this research with respect to two folds. An academician and a businessperson can often view problem interpretation differently. Here the perspectives I have taken reflect my interpretation and findings of the problem at hand. Thus, my overall objective is “To assess the role of work motivation on employee’s performance”.
Thus my perspective is that of performance enhancement in relation to financial Motivation and to judge if other motivational factors can as well enhance employees’ performance. * Preconception Individual’s preconceptions are their ideas that exist regarding different phenomenon. According to the Cambridge advanced learners dictionary, preconception is an idea or opinion formed before enough information is available to form it correct (Reed, 2006, p1).
This opinion is as a result of a complex pattern, which is usually influenced by a person’s practical experience, social background education, etc. Each and everyone decision values and behavior is affected by preconceptions for they posses it. It therefore undermines everyone complete objectivity especially when making observations. Rather than pursuing complete objectivity, I should instead be aware of such a phenomenon and let them not interfere in my decisions in an unreasonable manner.
Preconceptions differ from individual to individual depending on for example experiences, education or previous scientific work. Education in its self forms a strong foundation for understanding, preconceptions. Preconceptions are socially founded, subjective opinions on the issues to be studied. The scientist preconceptions vary depending upon the parents, religion conviction, circle, and set of acquaintances, working places, social status. Some are deeply founded than others and as such are harder to change e. g. faith and politics.
As a business student with previous economic background and work experience, my preconceptions will not only affect my findings and the conclusions made, but also the whole scientific process as noted earlier. Thus pure objectivity is very difficult to maintain in scientific research. To some extent, my findings reflects the values, my work is inevitably subjective and that it is important for me to give the reader knowledge regarding my background providing the reader with sufficient information against which the work research can be evaluated and understood.
Preconceptions are the foundation upon which I have based all my following experiences and therefore the following experiences can be colored by our preconceptions. They are not just a built in memory; they affect me while I search from new knowledge and decide the approach that I have on the subject that am about to explore (Sarita N, and Ulrika Ronnholm (2004) Culture what are its effects). My preconceptions came from my previous studies and practical experience within the public sector in Cameroon and educational background.
Having this in mind, my preconceptions (especially about the motivational importance of money) and how this might affect the study was questioned at great lengths Primarily because the empirical findings or results of this thesis will be based on the responses obtained from the questionnaires administered to the survey participants, which of course during the study period are not affected by my individual preconceptions. * Ideal Depending upon the way you choose to perceive the reality, a scientific research should be essential to give the reader knowledge on the research.
This view should follow the theoretical and scientific choices of the study. They are two scientific ideals that emerge from the interpretation at hand; the positivism and the hermeneutic. These ideals are two extremes and the researcher may place him any way along the line. In my reflections upon the rule of financial motivation, I describe myself as an unreconstructed positivist, guided by the belief that employees are motivated financially to perform better. As a result, conclusions can be drawn about employees’ attitudes towards financial motivation.
These results in the generation of scientific knowledge base on generalized propositions that can be tasted against facts from which it is possible to Asses the rule of work motivation on employee performance. * Approach In this research, I will follow the deductive approach. Since it utilizes a wide range of existing theories and tries to find answers from existing research and findings about motivation and employees enhancement, which I very much believe, will be use to form the basis to compare, analyze and investigate the findings of the research.
The investigation will start from a sample questionnaire and various theories on motivation, and performance enhancement relating them to previous research. And then conclude by analyzing Results of the questionnaire ranking the motivational factors that is welcomed by employees towards their performance. Reed (2006,p1) suggest that,” empirical research generates knowledge derived from observation or experimentation as opposed to theory and that empirical research uses inductive reasoning to draw conclusions about the experimentation and observations ”.
In general, a study can be carried out using an inductive or deductive approach. Reed goes further to present that the inductive approach is “where specific observations or measurements are made in order to develop broader conclusions, generalization and theories. The deductive on the other hand, is “where one starts thinking about generalizations, then proceeds towards specifics on how to prove or implement the generalizations. * Research Method Basically, they are two main research methods and each method is employed and used depending on the research question at hand.
Firstly, the qualitative method is where the goal is to widen the knowledge and the whole pre-understanding through field observations or in laboratories. The weakness of this method is the effect from the control of the phenomena, which will continue to change because of the scientific process. During the oral method, the interviewer should guide the conversation as little as possible. Through the language, the scientist and respondents could take part of each other’s thoughts by their own valuations and experience, for it ecomes easier for the scientist to gather information from the respondents. Qualitative research is by no means a new strategy or framework for doing social research (Hamilton, 1994; Vidich and Lyman, 1994). None-the-less, there has been a very considerable growth in the use and popularity of qualitative research since the early 1960s, which can easily convey the impression that it is of more recent origin than is in fact the case. It seems to imply any approach, which does not entail the collection and analysis of qualitative data.
This view is generally regarded as unhelpful though it does have some currency, largely because for most writers and practitioners, it is viewed as being more than the mere absence of qualitative data. Quantitative methods on the other hand are based on already decided and well-structure questions, which all the respondents will be asked. The information is reduced to a certain area of interest and respondents will be repeated the same questions. This can be combined with open questions, which give the respondents the flexibility to answer from different perspectives.
Quantitative and qualitative aspects may also be combined in the same study. They can complement each other by bringing width and depth into the research. A mix of qualitative and quantitative studies gave me the best ideal to follow as by focusing on secondary data, and previous research I intend to forge ahead with the research question. With my main objective, to achieve a deeper understanding of the chosen subject, this research will knowledge realized from articles written on the topic conducted in previous research.
The combined approaches will be the most meaningful way to probe into the subject and assess the role of the financial aspect of motivation in enhancing employees’ performance. The major part of this thesis uses a quantitative method, as the aim is focus on gathering information or opinions about the many factors in a systematic manner (in this case a survey) in order to identify the factor that motivates today’s employees. However, a quantitative approach is considered most suitable when analyzing the results between the different subgroups of respondents as the results are mainly presented in figures. Collection The search among the students yields a considerable amount of literature (both books and scientific articles) concerning work motivation dating as far backs as the 1950s. To develop a strong theoretical background, several of these materials were utilized, which enabled me to select those that I considered most suitable for this thesis. The books and articles were found using the search engines and databases available at the Internet. From a review of literature, a survey questionnaire was developed to collect data for the study.
The survey questionnaire developed included a list of ten factors that were adapted from previous researchers already mentioned in the previous discussions. During the study period, 100 surveys were administered to employees who represent the target population of this study. These typed questionnaires were all hand-delivered to participants, which were dropped in a box assigned for collection. My presence was only relevant for explaining some statements in the questionnaire that the respondents needed further explanation.
The questionnaire asked participants to rank the surveys ten questions according to how important each is in motivating them as future employees to perform best at work. The most important factor was ranked 1and least important ranked 10. All factors were to be ranked and no rank could be used more than once. The participants were as well asked to indicate their; Name, Current age. The respondents filling the questionnaire found no major problem in understanding the question as they were asked the only major problem I realized although from a very small number of respondents, was that of ranking the factors.
However, out of the 100 hundred questionnaires administered 75 responded questionnaires usable for this project (75%). The remaining 25% were those that were not refund by the respondents for various reasons, which could not be, count for. In general, collecting data among employees was very interesting, as many of the respondents were happy making an assessment of their future employment situations. Therefore I consider the 75% response rate to be adequate and a good sample for this project. * Sample
The purpose of this project is to access the role of financial motivation in enhancing employee’s performance in organizations, utilizing Mallow’s hierarchy of need theory as a foundation in order to achieve this aim. The process through which this would be obtain is by allowing individuals to rank a given set of adapted motivational factors according to how important each is in motivating them as employees to perform best at work. I am of the view that by using a general survey method rather than interviews, it would be possible to overcome some of the major concerns of Mallow’s critics.
As a result, a total of 100 questionnaires (see appendix for sample of administered questionnaire), were prepared and randomly administered among employees of different organizations. These questionnaires were distributed randomly in order to ensure maximum representation of all level of employees from different works of life and to avoid any possible biases. To ensure this, for example, the sample included employees from different age groups, regions and studying different field of programmers. * Choice of investigating factors
Choosing the investigating factors for a research is of great importance for the outcome of that study. The factors selected in this study are from a number of previous studies, enabling this thesis to accommodate a broader view of the existing literature. Therefore it is only necessary at this point to motivate my choice for adopting some factors for this thesis and not others. Firstly, the original plan was to undertake a case study of Company to assess the role of financial motivation on the performance of their employees, taking into consideration my preconceptions.
However, this did not materialize because of some understanding difficulties, for example, when I contacted through phone calls to carry out my study, I was told of the understanding difficulties. Therefore with a degree of counseling from my supervisor the decision was taking to instead carry out a general survey involving employees of various companies both private and public. Secondly, only four subgroups are considered in this project.
These included (name and age) because I saw them as the most appropriate subgroups to be used for this project since the respondents to the survey included just students who could only be sub-divided for easy analysis of the results. Thus a third factor was to include the basis on which the selection for the factors was done to ensure validity in the results obtained from the analysis of the survey. Thirdly, the basis for selecting the ten factors in this project was that each factor must have been used by at least more than one previous research thus making the results and analysis of this thesis objective.
Hence a discussion on what constitutes Deficiency needs and Growth needs was necessary as a fourth reason for the selection of investigating factors. Fourthly, it is worth noting that from the ten factors of need used in this study, three could be regarded as Deficiency needs for every employee (Good working conditions, job security, and nature of job). While the other seven could be considered growth needs for every employee (promotion and expectations, organizational/management style, recognition, satisfying goals, Good wages, team spirit, working hours).
These factors were considered to be appropriate for this study. Finally, it is worth nothing that even though most of the target population of previous studies was specific group of employees, however most of the factors used were the same, though some were different. In this study, certain factors such as Good working conditions, working hours were not considered, as I did not find them highly relevant in this study, as their inclusion will only result in a pull of unnecessary data. * Data analysis
After data were collected on all the factors, excel computer programme was used to present the results. The collective rank order was determined by entering the ranking given to each of the 10 factors in the survey questionnaire. After entering the rankings given to each factor by each respondent, the total or sum of all the rankings for that factor was totaled. The factor with the least or lowest sum, was ranked number 10 or the last factor and the factor with the highest sum was ranked 1 or first.
The same procedure was used to analysis the ranking of factors between the different subgroups. This system of data analysis was found to be more appropriate as different participants gave a different ranking for the same factor, and this was the simplest method that I could use to present the results. * Quality of the research design Validity: Research design is often divided into three broad categories, according to “the amount of control the research maintains over the conduct of the research study”. Th